I think its so ironic that with all the happenings with Michael Jackson that it reminded me of Heath Ledger and his sudden death. And then not a couple of days later this issue was buzzing around the internet. Although this issue was planned before Michael’s passing it’s just too freaky for me. This August 2009 issue of Vanity Fair hits news stands tomorrow and is packed with stuff I really don’t want to read. I did find some nice things that I would share…

On Heath’s devotion to acting according to director Terry Gilliam: “He would arrive in the morning completely knackered. By the end of the day he was beaming, glowing with energy. It was like everything was put into the work, because that was the joy; that’s what he loved to do. The words were just pouring out. It was like he was channeling.”

On why Heath didn’t want to take the role of the Joker according to agent Steven Alexander: Heath “was always hesitant to be in a summer blockbuster, with the dolls and action figures and everything else that comes with one of those movies. He was afraid it would define him and limit his choices.”

On his motivation to perform well according to Alexander: “He wasn’t motivated by money or stardom, but by the respect of his peers, and for people to walk out of a movie theater after they’d seen something that he’d worked on and say, ‘Wow, he really disappeared into that character.’ He was striving to become an ‘illusionist,’ as he called it, able to create characters that weren’t there.”

And now for the beautiful pictures that were taken back in 2000 when Heath appeared in Vanity Fair, some of them have been published, some not. They are all amazing.

More pictures….

While I was watching the Oscars last night I was dreading hearing the winner for the Best Supporting Actor. I knew in my heart that it would be Heath Ledger, but I didn’t want to not see him able to accept the award. Heath did win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his amazing portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight. I loved his performance and I think he deserves every ounce of it.

Heath’s family accepted the Oscar for him saying:

His mother Sally Bell said: “Heath was such a compassionate and generous soul who added so much excitement and inspiration to our lives.

“We have been truly overwhelmed by the honour and respect being bestowed upon him with this award. Tonight, we are choosing to celebrate and be happy for what he has achieved.”

His sister Kate said: “Heath, we both knew what you had created in the Joker was extraordinarily special and had even talked about being here on this very day. We really wish you were, but we proudly accept this award on behalf of your beautiful Matilda. Thank you.”

These pictures of Heath were uncovered and were back in 1999 just before his movie, 1o Things I Hate About You, came out. He had just turned 20 and he had the world in front of him. Little did he know back then how amazing his life would be and how it would turn out.

More pictures…

(the girl in the pictures is Rose Byrne)
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I know all of these aren’t probably new…but the first one I haven’t seen yet. Just looking into Heath Ledger’s eyes in this picture gives me the shivers! The other one’s are kinda cool…And Batman looks in serious thought in the last one.

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We all know we want to go see The Dark Knight a million times at least. So while you watch it your million and first time look at this list I found from Movie Mistakes of the mistakes they found in the film…(I will not read one of them…I haven’t even seen it once yet!!!)

FInd out all the mistakes…after the jump….

Continuity: When Harvey Dent loses his face and is lying in the hospital bed, when he’s turned with the damaged side against the pillow, we can see the inside of the side of his mouth which should be damaged, but it’s fully intact. Then when he turns it’s suddenly burned away.
Continuity: On the prisoner’s ferry, supposedly just before midnight, the prisoner stands up to take the detonator from the guard. As he stands up, the clock shows it’s roughly 11:30/11:35. Then his body covers the clock and he moves forward. When you see the clock again, it shows it’s just before midnight.
Revealing: During the end of the car chase, when the Joker is out of his truck and Batman is on the Batpod coming towards him, you can see a store sign that reads “Chicago Supply”.
Continuity: When Bruce Wayne is talking to Alfred while having his arm stitched, in shots from the side he’s looking downwards, but in other shots he’s looking up towards Alfred.
Other: In the scene where Joker is goading the one guard until the guard can no longer control himself: each time the Joker is shown goading him, there is a large piece of glass on the window ledge behind the Joker. It is really obvious, and makes it easy to guess what is about to happen. This piece of glass is much thicker than any of the other shattered pieces of glass on the ledge.
Continuity: In the scene where Alfred is stitching up Bruce, Bruce says “I was meant to inspire people” and as he says “people” the shot changes and his lips aren’t moving but the audio track continues.
Factual error: After the tunnel ambush when they get air support again they show the view from the helicopter of a SWAT member with an M16 and an EOTech sight attached. If you look closely the red dot scope is mounted backwards on the weapon.
Continuity: In the car chase, as they exit onto lower 5th, the convoy has, in order, a police cruiser, 2 swat vans, then 2 cruisers. When the garbage truck pulls up next to the convoy, he takes out the second to last cruiser first (there is a car visible behind). It then spins out another cruiser in front of it before reaching the van with Dent in it, but there should have been no other cruiser between that one and the van
Continuity: Joker and Two-face are in the hospital; Harvey is about to flip the coin to decide if the Joker lives or dies. The camera angle switches back and forth between the Joker and Harvey. From one angle Harvey is wearing the monitor clamp on his middle finger with the grey wire, from the other angle it is gone. It disappears and re-appears every time the camera angle changes.
Continuity: When Two-Face has hold of Gordon’s kid and is flipping the coin to “decide” who gets to live, he flips and catches it in his left hand. Between flips, there’s a close-up of the kid’s face, and Two-Face is stroking the kid’s hair – with his left hand. No coin in sight.
Continuity: In the scene where the Joker is robbing the mob bank (in the first 3 minutes of the film), a Clown Thug is seen knocking down the security guard in the background. A few shots later, the same security guard is knocked down in the same manner before the Clown Thug is shot.
Continuity: When pointing the gun at himself, the Joker’s finger is on the hammer in one scene, and in the next, his finger is pointing straight up.
Continuity: The Joker’s hair length changes dramatically throughout the film. It is noticeably shorter in the police interrogation scene than in the rest of the film.
Continuity: In the scene where Batman is interrogating the Joker, Batman hits his right hand, but in the next shot the Joker is examining his left hand.
Continuity: During the Batman/Joker interrogation scene, the amount of make up on Joker’s face changes between shots. This is particularly noticeable on his chin and forehead, and is not consistent with reasonable rub off from the altercation.
Continuity: In the scene where Batman is interrogating the Joker at the police station, Batman pins the Joker up against the wall with his arm at the Joker’s neck effectively holding him in place. There are two different camera angles used back and forth – in camera angle one the joker is clenching Batman’s arm from underneath, while in the other shot the Joker’s arm is draped over the top of Batman’s arm.
Continuity: When Bruce first walks off onto his balcony during the party, he completely empties his glass over the edge. When Rachel comes out to speak with him, his glass still has a small amount of champagne left in it.
Continuity: When Batman is about to glide into Lau’s building they show him standing on the ledge about two meters from the corner, ready to make his jump. Cut camera angle to an overhead shot and he is standing on the corner of the building when he makes his jump.
Continuity: In the scene in the warehouse where Harvey Dent was held hostage, when Batman gets him outside and the building explodes, Dent’s face and some of his left side catches on fire. You can see him bring his hands to his face to try and put out the fire while he’s lying on the ground. Yet in the hospital scene a bit later, his hand(s) are completely wound free.
Other: Once inside Lau’s building, Lau’s bodyguards fire several shots at Batman while he is fighting. The bullets shatter the glass partitions inside the office but the exterior windows of the building, directly in the line of fire and only a few feet further than the partitions, are all entirely undamaged.
Factual error: The way Two-Face’s face moves is impossible given the extent of his injuries. His lips, cheeks, and eyes all move in such a way that would require muscles which are missing.

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The Dark Knight comes out in four days…and I’m getting super excited about it. And watching all the interviews on TV they have with the cast members is exciting but super depressing at the same time. Because when it comes to talk about The Joker the other members talk for Heath Ledger. Now, Oscar talk is in the works for Heath…

Michael Caine, one of Heath’s costars, says Heath was amazing in the role of The Joker. And when it was time to share the first scene with him he was floored at the performance.

The scene involved The Joker gatecrashing a black tie party.

What shocked Caine the most was that he was chatting with Ledger quietly before the scene and the Australian was quietly spoken, but when director Christopher Nolan called “action”, Ledger instantly switched into the slithering, despicable killer.

“I think it’s a performance, at a minimum, that is going to get a posthumous Oscar nomination,” Caine, who reprises his role as Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred Pennyworth, said. “It must do. That performance was extraordinary. You look at Heath, or you talk to Heath, and you don’t know where the performance comes from. It’s not like he’s a big, noisy character or anything. He’s just a very nice guy and then suddenly action is called on set and bang! You think: ‘Wow’. I was knocked over by it.”

I totally agree with him. Bring on the Oscar, Heath deserves it!

Again…we are all excited about The Dark Knight coming to theatres and it’s not too long of a wait now. So while you are waiting read these scans from Entertainment Weekly. I know you won’t be disappointed.

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The Batman and The Joker are Entertainment Weekly’s cover boys…with all the hype of The Dark Knight I think it was a great choice. Inside the pages Christopher Nolan (the director) has nothing but praise for Heath Ledger and the role he played in the movie.

On Heath’s commitment to his character: ”The guy had serious nuts. What I needed was someone who wouldn’t be afraid of the comparison with Jack Nicholson. And then I saw Heath’s incredible performance in Brokeback Mountain. Such a lack of vanity. This was an actor who wasn’t afraid to bury himself in his character — to a massive extent.”

On having the same vision for the The Joker as Heath: ”We had the same take on the character. We didn’t have a script yet, but we had ideas. The idea of anarchy as an absolute. The idea of chaos as the most frightening thing to society. The idea of a motiveless criminal, somebody who just wants to watch the world burn.”

On Heath spending months working with a voice coach fine-tuning the Joker’s cackling cadence: “He tried to articulate to me what he was doing with his voice, but it was sometimes hard to understand. He talked about ventriloquist dummies, the way their mouths moved, the way their voices wouldn’t appear to come out of them. He said he wanted the voice to have a mocking quality, a sort of disconnectedness.”

On Heath splattering makeup across his face throughout the film: ”He started applying the makeup himself — just to see what it would look like if he put it on with his own hands. We talked about how streaking the paint could get across the idea of corruption, of decay.”

This role of The Joker would have changed Heath no matter what…and seeing him come alive again on the movie screen will be moving. Laughing and crying…amazing and terrifying…good and bad…

photo and source

Waiting for the next Batman movie is taking forever…so while you are waiting for it to come to theatres here is the first 5 minutes of The Dark Knight. I even got a capture of the first time you see The Joker on the screen. It looks amazing…

UPDATE: NEW SITE THAT HAS THE SIX MINUTE TRAILER…

Earlier reviews of The Dark Knight have started coming out and they all are praising Heath Ledger’s role as The Joker. Cast members have started talking about Heath and his devotion to his daughter and his role as The Joker…

“Because he died people want a dark story [that] he was so obsessed with the character, he was so contaminated by the Joker and he couldn’t sleep and all of that stuff,” said costar Gary Oldman, who plays Lt. Jim Gordon in the film, adding that wasn’t the case.

“In between takes he would sit on the curbside and a smoke cigarette and laugh and talk about his daughter Matilda,” added Oldman. “I thought he was just a beautiful kid. I thought he was just wonderful. I had a real affection for him.

Heath’s role as a father was amazing…you would always saw Heath and Matilda hanging out….

“Heath showed me pictures of [Matilda] … [he] would come in and say she did this and she did that,” recalled Aaron Eckhart, who plays District Attorney Harvey Dent in the sequel out July 18.

But Ledger’s other love on set was for his character, the Joker. Eckhart added: “He really created his look. That character — Heath loved so much. He really cared about the Joker.”

I am super excited to see this movie…and I’m even considering seeing it in the theatre…and I never want to do that!